More books, some 100,000 of them, have been written about the Civil War than any other subject outside religion, it seems, and with the 150th anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter, publishers are upping the ante. Here are a few of the more interesting titles.

In 1861: The Civil War Awakening (Knopf), Adam Goodheart writes about the events immediately leading up to the Civil War. They include the election of Lincoln, the firing on Fort Sumter, civilian militia such as the Wide Awakes and the Zouaves, and the escaping slaves, called contrabands.

He intertwines these momentous events and movements with stories of little-known or long-forgotten Americans because “history is decided not just on the battlefields and in cabinet meetings, but in individual hearts and minds,” he writes. “I wanted to know about the people who responded to that moment not just with anger and panic but with hope and determination.”

So he resurrects Ralph Farnham, the last survivor of Bunker Hill (although Old Uncle Farnham, as he was called, actually stood on the sidelines and watched), and firebrand Louis T. Wigfall, who squandered his inheritance, fought the Seminoles, was addicted to whiskey and whorehouses, and as Goodheart writes “took the next logical step and went into Texas politics.” There’s also Zouave founder Elmer Ellsworth, a Lincoln confidante and the first male pin-up, who was among the first of the war’s casualties, although he was murdered instead of dying in combat.

Goodheart ends the book with Lincoln’s July 4, 1861, speech, which presaged the Gettysburg Address. Once the speech was done, Goodheart writes, “Lincoln never again needed to ask himself whether he should be fighting or what he was fighting for.”

That Fourth of July speech is not included in Lincoln on the Civil War(Penguin Books), a collection of nine Lincoln speeches. The book begins with an address the future president made to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Ill., in 1838. Editor Elda Rotor includes that one because it hints of Lincoln’s passion for America’s form of government and for preserving the unity of the country through order. Other speeches are more familiar, including the 1858 “house divided” speech, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address and an April 11, 1865, speech on Reconstruction.

If an army travels on its stomach, as Napoleon said, the Confederacy never had a chance, writes Andrew F. Smith in Starving the South: How the North Won the Civil War ($27.99). The South was deficient in food production even before the war started. Plantation owners grew cotton and tobacco instead of foodstuffs. “Plant corn and be free, or plant cotton and be whipped,” a Georgia newspaper thundered, advice that many planters ignored during the war.

The South also faced a lack of salt, not just for seasoning but for preserving meats. And its transportation system was dismal. Added to that, farm laborers quit to become soldiers. And then, of course, there was hoarding and speculation.

Blockade runners brought in food for the wealthy — tinned oysters, wine, sweets — but little for the average Southerner. And then the North used food as a tactical weapon, starving out both the army and civilians. In Vicksburg, just before its surrender, Confederates were reduced to eating cowpeas and mule meat, and butcher shops displayed dressed rats.

There was some trade with the North, Smith writes, and while it may have been humanitarian, it prolonged the war, causing many more deaths. Famine wasn’t the sole reason the South lost the war, but Smith makes a compelling argument that lack of food was a major reason the South was defeated.

The Civil War haunts us in large part because of the visual heritage of Matthew Brady. These stark photographs, reproduced in Brady’s Civil War: A Collection of Memorable Civil War Images Photographed by Matthew Brady and his Assistants(Lyons Press) show the aftermath of battles, the dead bodies, the remnants of buildings and the men (and a few women) who were part of the war.

In a brief introduction, Webb Garrison writes that Brady was a successful portrait photographer when he set out to cover the war. The limitations of photography kept him from depicting battles. Instead he and his assistants, primarily Alexander Gardner, captured scenes before and after battles. Brady favored heroic pictures of officers, while Gardner was more of a documentary photographer, although he sometimes posed scenes. For instance, the dead were often lined up like logs instead of shown as they fell.

This outsize book shows a variety of subjects, including military men posed or preparing for battle. (The photographers liked artillery shots because of the drama of the big guns.) There are pictures of bulwarks and bridges, battlefields, contraband, nurses, ships and railroads, even hospital scenes.

Brady profited little from his work. In fact, he went bankrupt. But his legacy of photographs is the most powerful documentation we have of America’s deadliest war (although not as deadly as the 250 million Confederates the author claims died in the conflict — clearly a typo.)

There are many guides to Civil War battle sites. The Big Book of Civil War Sites (Globe Pequot Press) goes well beyond that and includes such sites as the notorious Andersonville prison camp and Harper’s Ferry. The book is a collection of information — descriptions of battles and their importance, maps and artwork, recommended hotels and restaurants, and Civil War minutia. The Southern anthem “Dixie,” for instance, was written by a Northerner for a minstrel show, and Lincoln proclaimed it the finest tune he’d ever heard.